This is actually my third try at baklava. I didn’t take any photos of the first two, because they were generally awful. The whole process was awful, and apparently I didn’t want any evidence of their existence.

The problem with the first two attempts was that I tried to make it inside of a rectangular pyrex dish. Maybe for someone who knows what they’re doing this would have been fine. But for me, I had major problems getting the thinly-rolled dough to behave properly in the dish. It tended to contract or otherwise not behave when buttered, yielding an ugly mess. I think it was a mistake to trim the rolled dough before trying to place it in the dish? Maybe having extra would have helped. I don’t know

Anyway, this third attempt was more successful because I ditched the pyrex dish in favor of a sheet pan. I rolled the phyllo sheets out and just built the baklava layers on the pan. The dough behaved better and stayed thin, and I was still able to pour the syrup on and have most of it stay within the pastry. One downside was that I couldn’t use a knife to cut the diamond pattern, because I didn’t want to cut the silicone pad. Instead, I used my plastic bench scraper to make the cuts. In hindsight, I could have built the baklava on parchment and then used a knife.

TBH, my conclusion from all this is that, for baklava, I don’t think it’s worth making the phyllo dough. Baklava really needs the paper-thin sheets that you get with the bought stuff. No matter what, mine weren’t going to be that thin!

I do wonder if the Paul Hollywood cornflour method would work. I’m tempted to try, but maybe not motivated enough. Here’s why: I bought a piece of baklava from Cafe Barada a few days ago, and it was just sublime. I mean, it was light, delicate, only gently sweet. Just perfect. Why work hard to make something so inferior? This is Cafe Barada’s baklava. I mean, look at this thing of beauty…

Maybe it’s worth it to make homemade spanakopita triangles, but not baklava.